Fifty-Two Story Talks to Boys and Girls eBook

No boy likes to be called a coward, and some boys
do things that are dangerous for fear that their friends
will think they have no courage. Sometimes it
is more cowardly to do a dangerous thing like that
than not to do it.

Do not think that you are a coward because you are
afraid of dangerous things. Some of the bravest
men the world ever saw have been afraid, but in spite
of their fear they went firmly on.

A story is told of Lord Wellington, a great English
general, who saw a young man in his army who was white
with fear just before a battle, and yet did not run
away. Lord Wellington said: “There
is a brave man. He knows the danger, and yet
he faces it.” Another story is told of a
soldier who was making fun of a second who was badly
frightened just before battle. The frightened
soldier said to the other one: “Yes, I am
afraid. And if you were half as much afraid as
I am, you would run away.”

The lesson I want to draw is this, that it is not
cowardly to be afraid of things which have danger
in them. It is cowardly to run away if you ought
to face them. And if you ought not to face them
it is cowardly to go headlong into them, just because
of some other boy’s foolish dare.

I remember a playmate who used to bite the heads off
the fish he caught, just because another boy dared
him to. It used to make him terribly sick, but
he was too much of a coward not to do it. Some
boys take up smoking and drinking and swearing for
the same reason. Any boy who does that sort of
thing is a coward.

ABRAHAM’S GUEST

You have all heard of Abraham, who went out from his
home in Ur of the Chaldees to find God. And you
remember how he dwelt in tents, and had hundreds of
cattle. And you know how good he was to his nephew,
Lot.

There is a story told about Abraham which you will
not find in the Bible. Abraham received into
his tent one day an aged traveler. After he had
invited the traveler to dine with him at his sunset
meal, Abraham went out to offer up his evening sacrifice
to God. But the traveler would not join him in
prayer and thanksgiving. Abraham was angry because
of the old man’s lack of religion, and drove
him from his tent.

Later in the evening the angel of the Lord appeared
to Abraham and asked him why he had driven out the
old man. Abraham replied:

“Lord, he refused to acknowledge Thee!”

The Lord replied: “What! I have borne
with this old man for eighty years, and you could
not bear with him for two days!” After that,
so the story goes, Abraham helped everyone who came
along, no matter what his religious belief might be.

That is a good story for boys and girls to remember
when they feel that they cannot forgive someone who
has done them a wrong. What would become of you
if God never forgave you when you did wrong?
It is this spirit of forgiveness that Christ means
to teach us when He says in the Lord’s Prayer,
“Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”
If, then, you say that prayer and refuse to forgive
anyone who has done you a wrong, you mean that you
want to have God act just as unforgiving with you as
you are with your enemies. That would be terrible,—­to
ask God not to forgive you. None of us would
dare pray like that.